the prayer

For years and years, from the beginning, the nightly prayer (even after God) finally to work properly tomorrow. The schedule, the set of texts. At one point, it was the Norton Anthology of World Literature and a teach-yourself guide to Spanish, then Latin, then Homeric Greek, Italian, and finally Chinese. Earlier than that it was all the books listed in the back of Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon. Of late, there isn’t even a set of books to read – the list has turned into a toppling and random stack. It was also always certain amount of writing, either in the morning or at night (my nights are unworkable now – I am too old). But in conflict with this, a steadily developing doubt in volition and will. We are waifs amid forces, we do what we will do. You can make a list but you cannot make yourself keep to the list. But still one says the prayer, even after God, for the work to come and for everything, finally, to be in its right place.